dotman is a python package that serves as a simple manager for the dotfiles. The code structure is inspired by [dotfiles][https://github.com/jbernard/dotfiles].

dotman allows storing your dotfiles in a single folder by maintaining the original file structure. The folder can be distribute by VCS system or file syncronization services and deployed onto different systems using standard VCS branching.

By default, dotman stores the files in the synchronized folder by symbol links. You can also specify if the files should be copied instead of symlink.

dotman requires Python version larger than 3.4. Currently the installation is done using git, PyPI will come later.

Most likely, the dotman package should be installed outside a particular python virtual environment, run the following codes to install the HEAD version:

$ git clone https://github.com/jbernard/dotfiles
$ cd dotfiles
$ git submodule update --init
$ ./bin/dotfiles --help

Note: the source tree example above will run whatever code has been committed to your current checkout, whereas pip will fetch the latest official version from pypi. This might be what you want, but you should be aware.

dotfiles uses click for its CLI interface, so every subcommand accepts the --help flag to offer additional information on what is available. The aim is for this information to be sufficient for use. At some point I'll write a manpage, but do file a bug if any of the usage information is inaccurate or misleading.

-a, --add <file...> Add dotfile(s) to the repository.

-c, --check Check for missing or unsynced dotfiles.

-l, --list List currently managed dotfiles, one per line.

-r, --remove <file...> Remove dotfile(s) from the repository.

-s, --sync [file...] Update dotfile symlinks. You can overwrite colliding files with -f or --force. All dotfiles are assumed if you do not specify any files to this command.

-m, --move <path> Move dotfiles repository to another location, updating all symlinks in the process.

For all commands you can use the --dry-run option, which will print actions and won't modify anything on your drive.

To install dotfiles, simply:

$ pip install dotfiles

Or, if you absolutely must:

$ easy_install dotfiles

But, you really shouldn't do that.

If you want to work with the latest version, you can install it from the repository_:

$ git clone https://github.com/jbernard/dotfiles
$ cd dotfiles
$ ./bin/dotfiles --help

To install your dotfiles on a new machine, you might do this:

$ git clone https://github.com/me/my-dotfiles Dotfiles
$ dotfiles --sync

To add '~/.vimrc' to your repository:

$ dotfiles --add ~/.vimrc     (relative paths work also)

To make it available to all your hosts:

$ cd ~/Dotfiles
$ git add vimrc
$ git commit -m "Added vimrc, welcome aboard!"
$ git push

You get the idea. Type dotfiles --help to see the available options.

You can choose to create a configuration file to store personal customizations. By default, dotfiles will look for ~/.dotfilesrc. You can change this with the -C flag. An example configuration file might look like:

[dotfiles]
repository = ~/Dotfiles
ignore = [
    '.git',
    '.gitignore',
    '*.swp']
externals = {
    '.bzr.log':     '/dev/null',
    '.uml':         '/tmp'}

You can also store your configuration file inside your repository. Put your settings in .dotfilesrc at the root of your repository and dotfiles will find it. Note that ignore and externals are appended to any values previously discovered.

Dotfiles are stored in the repository with no prefix by default. So, ~/.bashrc will link to ~/Dotfiles/bashrc. If your files already have a prefix, . is common, but I've also seen _, then you can specify this in the configuration file and dotfiles will do the right thing. An example configuration in ~/.dotfilesrc might look like:

[dotfiles]
prefix = .

You may want to link some dotfiles to external locations. For example, bzr writes debug information to ~/.bzr.log and there is no easy way to disable it. For that, I link ~/.bzr.log to /dev/null. Since /dev/null is not within the repository, this is called an external. You can have as many of these as you like. The list of externals is specified in the configuration file:

[dotfiles]
externals = {
    '.bzr.log':     '/dev/null',
    '.adobe':       '/tmp',
    '.macromedia':  '/tmp'}

If you're using a VCS to manage your repository of dotfiles, you'll want to tell dotfiles to ignore VCS-related files. For example, I use git, so I have the following in my ~/.dotfilesrc:

[dotfiles]
ignore = [
     '.git',
     '.gitignore',
     '*.swp']

Any file you list in ignore will be skipped. The ignore option supports glob file patterns.

Many programs store their configuration in ~/.config. It's quite cluttered and you probably don't want to keep all its content in your repository. For this situation you can use the packages setting:

[dotfiles]
packages = ['config']

This tells dotfiles that the contents of the config subdirectory of your repository must be symlinked to ~/.config. If for example you have a directory config/awesome in your repository, it will be symlinked to ~/.config/awesome.

This feature allows one additional level of nesting, but further subdirectories are not eligible for being a package. For example, config is valid, but config/transmission is not valid. Arbitrary nesting is a feature under current consideration.

At the moment, packages can not be added or removed through the command line interface. They must be constructed and configured manually. Once this is done, sync, list, check, and move will do the right thing. Support for add and remove is a current TODO item.

If you'd like to contribute, simply fork the repository, commit your changes, make sure tests pass, and send a pull request. Go ahead and add yourself to AUTHORS or I'll do it when I merge your changes.